


Looking for Somewhere to Stand and Stay

by Daisiestdaisy (Doyle)



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-18 15:29:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5933395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doyle/pseuds/Daisiestdaisy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>The first time, Richard is drunk. Which is one reason why that ends up not actually being the first time.</i> After an awkward rejected pass at a party for the new CEO, Richard starts to have recurring dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Looking for Somewhere to Stand and Stay

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lies_d](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lies_d/gifts).



> For lies-d/ten-bobcats, who wanted smut with feelings. Happy chocolate-box exchange to one of my favorite people in the fandom! Title's from The National's Slow Show.

The first time, Richard is drunk. Which is one reason why that ends up not actually being the first time. It's the first something, anyway, the first moment after their relationship shifts from one thing to another, just like when he answered Monica's phone call as Jared's boss and hung up as nobody.

He won't realize that for a while, though. He's too distracted by irritation, and light-headedness, and the thought that _wow_ , Jared has big hands. They're both on his shoulders as Jared maneuvers him backwards, so gently it can’t really be called pushing him away.

“I thought this was what you wanted, Jared,” he says, peevish and hating the whine in his own voice. “Isn’t this why you’re still hanging around?”

In his defence, he’s been downing shots since they arrived at Raviga, so it makes total sense to him right now that Jared’s sticking with the new Pied Piper not because it’s his job, or for his three percent stake in what everybody keeps saying could still be a billion-dollar business one day, but because he’s holding onto some hopeless romcom dream of Richard suddenly opening his eyes to what’s been in front of him the whole time. Or “waiting for Richard to get so miserable he literally throws him a bone, poor bastard”, to quote a comment by Dinesh he wasn’t supposed to overhear.

That’s not what’s going on here. If anything this is anger and spite at Raviga, not misery. So it’s… it’s totally different.

“I’m not gay,” Richard adds, because it feels important – it's a point of honor he's clinging to, futile as he knows it is, that nothing he said on that arbitration stand two weeks ago wasn't true – but maybe seems like protesting too much, under the circumstances.

Jared’s a good person and a good friend and he doesn’t hesitate, even though he has to think that this is a weird declaration from somebody who just tried to back him up against Monica’s desk. “Of course. I know.”

“I mean, I don’t mind that _you’re_ gay. You know that, right? I think it’s fine. Or, better than fine, it’s great. Good for you.”

“Thank you, Richard. Your support means a lot.” From anyone else, certainly anyone Richard knows, that’d be sarcasm, but Jared’s expression is nothing but concern.

Concern his former boss has lost his mind, probably. Richard clears his throat. “So we should…”

“Back to the party,” Jared readily agrees. “We do need to show our support for our esteemed new overlord.” _There’s_ the sarcasm.

Richard likes him so much, in that moment, that he nearly does something dumb that’s almost identical to the dumb thing he already did. But he makes himself stay still. That’d be an amazing first day as CTO, having to answer a totally anonymous complaint about sexually harassing a co-worker.

Maybe Jared’s a little drunk, too. Richard’s not sure, hasn’t been paying attention to anything all night except the new CEO, his new _boss_. But there was a sweet, clear taste of white wine to his mouth, and before Jared turns to head back out to the party he hesitates, reaches out, like he’s going to smooth down a messy curl at Richard's temple. Yeah, Richard thinks, that's what he's doing, worrying about Richard looking presentable. What did he ever do without Jared?

But then Jared just frowns and looks away, his hand dropping to his side, like he decides at the last second to keep his hands to himself.

**

Jared wakes up faster than anybody he’s ever seen.

Not that he’s watched a lot of people sleep. Not that he’s doing that now.

But it only takes seconds for him to snap from mumbling furious German into his pillow to sitting up on the pull-out rec room couch, alert and wide-eyed. “Richard? Do you need something?”

 _No. Maybe._ “I just,” Richard says. This was clear in his head five minutes ago, but it must have been that middle-of-the-night logic that falls apart when you look at it closely. Like three nights after he was fired, when he finally fell asleep and dreamed an algorithm a thousand times better than middle out, flawless, beautiful, Weissman score like nobody had ever imagined. He woke up elated, joyful, and wrote the whole thing down before he passed out again, but in the morning the perfect code had turned into a scrawled list of prime numbers and a shaky drawing of a dick.

Not even a very nice dick. If there’s such a thing.

“I didn’t apologize,” Richard says. “The other night. The party.”

Anyone else in this house would lay out in detail what he could do with his belated 3am apologies. Jared just says, “Consider it forgotten. Richard, I'm so sorry, I didn't know you were still having trouble sleeping. Would you like a cup of soothing tea?”

“No, Jared, you don’t have to…” Richard rubs his hand across his eyes, exhausted, but in the way that he knows means he won’t be sleeping at all tonight, soothing tea or not. “I was drunk and I should never have… you’re allowed to be mad.”

“You were drunk,” Jared agrees. “I emailed you some links, but maybe you didn’t get to them yet…?”

He had; a bunch of posts on business blogs about managing your own behavior at office parties. He knew Jared meant it to be helpful, not to embarrass him, and he forced himself to skim the first two till Dinesh leaned across the table and said, voice low, “Just so you know, your face is super red. Maybe don’t look at porn at work now you’re not in charge any more? Or do what you want, I’m not your boss.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Thanks, Jared. That was, uh, informative.”

There were no links about sexual identity crises or a supportive pdf attachment called So You’re Not As Straight As You Thought, so he’s guessing Jared didn’t take it as Richard actually hitting on him. Of course he didn’t. He’s heard Richard talking about destructive software testing. Same principle here, just with people, not code. Throw something unexpected at them, and if the system’s robust it should be able to deal. Jared’s smart, he gets it.

Richard gets it too. He didn’t, before, but it comes back to him now, that moment of everything coming into focus that made him wake Jared up in the middle of the night in the first place.

If you gave up everything, your career, your salary, your apartment, just your whole life, because you’d banked everything on some guy you’d only met one time, and then it turned out he wasn’t what you thought, and you ended up living on a couch and eating ramen noodles every night: you could blame yourself. Blame your own shitty judgement screwing you over. Spiral into the guilt and self-recrimination and regret.

Or, you could tell yourself you just couldn’t help it. Persuade yourself that you were, are, in love with him. That’s unfortunate and it sucks to be you, but it’s nobody’s fault.

Jared says, “Richard?"

“Sorry,” he says. Jared will think he means just for the party. “You’re my friend, and that was mean.”

The living room’s dark. The light from his open bedroom door’s just enough to let him see Jared’s face. At the word ‘friend’, he suddenly beams. Fuck, has Richard never said that before?

“It’s okay,” Jared says. “I know you weren’t making fun of how I feel about you.”

 _How you think you feel about me._ He’s not surprised Jared said that so casually. Just sad for him, maybe, because he really means it.

Richard says, “I changed my mind. Tea sounds great.”

**

The tea does help. Phasing out the Red Bull after 6pm – Jared’s suggestion – doesn’t hurt. And if he’s honest, having somebody else in charge, getting to focus on just the code… he doesn’t hate it as much as he thought he would.

And it’s good to have some kind of closure on the thing with Jared. Not that it ever bothered him, thinking Jared had a crush or loved him or whatever. It was kind of flattering, kind of nice.

Within another week he’s back to a solid seven hours sleep, most nights.

And because he can’t have this one thing, because he’s Charlie Brown and the whole fucking universe is Lucy with the football, this is when the dreams start.

**

The morning of the arbitration, Jared helps him with his tie. Helped. This all happened already.

Richard once read somewhere that you can always tell you’re dreaming if you can’t turn on a light switch, or see your own reflection. That doesn’t help him out right now. It was Gavin who stood way too close in that bathroom, reaching around him to fix the tie while he and his mirror image shared weirded-out looks. Jared did it facing him, bending low to carefully check the knot, commenting how it was “trickier than it looks, doing this backwards.”

In the dream he says that same thing, but he’s unzipping Richard’s jeans, slipping his hand inside.

Dream-Richard looks down at Jared’s hand on his dick and thinks: _huh. Okay._

There are no mirrors and no light-switches, so he doesn’t get that this is a dream until Jared’s free hand is on the back of Richard’s neck and his breath’s hot against his ear and Richard is close to the edge and Jared whispers: “Richard. You’re going to be late for your biochem final. Did you even remember to register?”

Richard wakes up cold, sweating, tangled in his sheets.

**

His own reflection, sleepy-eyed and looking like crap, glares back at him in the mirror above the sink. So, at least he knows right now that he's awake. He cups water in his hands, cold as he can stand it, and splashes it over his face. He's been doing that a lot.

He's never had sex dreams. Not ones that he's _in_. Not vivid, hi-def, all-immersive sensory experiences that unsettle him for hours after waking up.

His brain normally runs on logical lines even when he's asleep, and he has a realistic idea of his own league and who would or wouldn't laugh in his face, so he guesses that's why he's fixated on Jared as his unknowing porn-dream co-star and not, like, Ryan Gosling. Or Matthew McConaughey. Or early-X Files David Duchovny.

Richard spends his shower coming up with another half dozen names, then carefully tables that line of thought in his head, because it's making him wonder again whether he's technically guilty of perjury now.

But if he has to have these dreams, and they have to be about a guy, and the guy has to be someone he lives and works with and who thinks he has a crush on Richard, then you’d think that at least, _at least_ , the sex could be less embarrassing.

It’s so tough to neutrally thank Jared for making breakfast or bringing him coffee when a half hour before his brain was making up a movie about his mom and all four grandparents walking in on them together. He can still see it, Jared kneeling on the floor at his feet, his own hand fisted in Jared’s hair, his Grandma Jean’s _total horror._

Late for finals is a recurring theme. That last awful year at Stanford keeps coming up, even though he didn't know Jared then. Even though if he had he'd never have blown him, or anyone, in front of his Econ class.

He stops drinking the tea, in the hope that Jared’s been accidentally feeding him some hallucinogenic aphrodesiac. He sleeps less. It doesn’t help.

He dreams that they fuck for the first time in his loft bed, which is crazy, Jared’s half a foot too tall. Even in the dream he points out (it’s a dream, so he can form coherent sentences even while Jared’s wrapping his arm around him from behind, laying kisses along the top of his spine, spreading him open and working his fingers inside him) that this is going to trash the bed and bring Erlich and the rest bursting in to find out what just happened.

Every part of this comes true.

That time he wakes up to Jared in his room, a weird, dizzy moment when he doesn't know what's real and what's the dream. Although Jared asking, "Oh, no - did we finally progress to bed-wetting?" is some kind of nightmare material.

For a second or two Richard considers saying 'yes' if only so he has an accomplice in trying to sneak these sheets into the washer, because in a horrible new development, apparently he's fourteen years old again, and he already passed peak embarrassment. Nowhere to go from those dreams but down. But faking a medical condition seems extreme. Jared already looks so worried about him. His eyes are huge, and Richard can't believe they've always been that blue.

**

The holidays are an excuse to put some space between himself and Jared.

He has a line ready to go, too many people at his parents’ house already, too expensive for Jared to come back to Tulsa with him and Bighead; and he’s not sure why he thinks all of that through because he knows Jared would never, in a hundred years, expect to be asked. It’s only Richard’s traitorous subconscious that likes to pretend they’re dating.

Anyway, “I’ve been invited to enjoy the festive hospitality of the Bachmanns,” Jared tells him, before Richard can say anything at all. Jared is thrilled to be included in someone’s plans, happier than Richard’s ever seen him while he’s been awake.

“That’s great,” he says. “That’s… nice. Of Erlich. Okay.”    

“I do have an ulterior motive,” Erlich admits, once Richard gets him alone. “My incredible generosity and the spirit of the holidays aside.”

Erlich has a cousin – “one of the lesser Bachmen” – who just broke up with his longterm boyfriend. “Not on my own level, but solidly in Jared’s league. Dieter gets a holiday rebound fling, Jared gets laid and realizes he needs to stop obsessing over unattainable straight men who _for some reason_ keep staring at him when they think nobody else can see.” He can’t bear to leave it that ambiguous, though, and a minute later he cracks. “You. I’m talking about you.”

“I know.”

“Because it’s weird as shit and it needs to stop.”

“Got it.”

“Fuck Jared, don’t fuck Jared, nobody cares,” Erlich tells him. He’s come a long way since he took Jared’s champagne and threw him out of the house and ordered Richard not to be a slut. “Just don’t subject the rest of us to your Degrassi Junior High bullshit.”

Richard could try to explain that Jared only thinks he likes him - it's something he's been thinking about a lot - but Erlich already looks beyond done with talking about this. He shuts himself in his room instead, blasting music through his headphones, looking through every social media account he can track down for a Dieter Bachmann.

**

Christmas is terrible.

His parents never really got what he was doing with Pied Piper, and if he uses the words ‘fired’ or ‘demoted’ they’ll flip out and panic and try to get him to move back home, so he says as little as he can. It’s not too difficult. His sister announces she’s pregnant, after (this surprises him) a year of trying. This is his parents’ first grandchild-to-be. He’s glad one of them’s doing something right.

Sleeping in his childhood bedroom kills the sex dreams, which is a relief until the one recurring dream replaces them. He's taking Monica's phone call again, but his parents are there, and Gavin Belson, and no Jared anywhere. Night after night, triumph on Gavin's face, confusion and disappointment on his mom's, and nobody to back him up.

It's worse than all the skipped finals and embarrassing sex combined.

Two nights after Christmas, avoiding sleep, he calls Jared almost without knowing he’s doing it – he’s lying back on his bed, feet dangling over the edge, and he’s scrolling mindlessly on his phone, and then Jared is picking up.

He can’t remember the last time he called him for something personal. Maybe never. That very first phone call, when he asked for help with his business plan, doesn’t count but feels like it should.

Jared sounded surprised and delighted to hear from him back then, too.

“How’s _Dieter_?”

“Erlich’s cousin?” Jared’s voice goes up in confusion. “I didn’t think you two knew one another.”

“He’s a volunteer firefighter,” Richard informs him, in case Dieter only shares this with his eighteen Twitter followers and not nice, awkward, sincere guys his cousin brings home for him to have meaningless rebound sex with. “And he likes to hike and has a ton of hobbies, all of which he's amazing at, because some guys are just fucking _great._ ”

“Richard,” Jared says, gently, “do you need me to come get you?”

He tugs at the edge of the comforter. “It’s like a twenty-five hour drive,” he says, which he realizes isn’t a no.

It’s eleven at night, nine for Jared in Fresno, but it feels like three in the morning, that kind of sudden clarity that might turn out to just be a sleep-deprived illusion. “I’m flying back Friday,” he says. “I’ll see you Friday.”

“Friday,” Jared repeats back to him, a promise.

**

As it turns out, the first time’s not a total disaster.

Not that it's perfect. Richard's thrown by kissing someone taller than he is so it takes a minute to get comfortable, and he accidentally bites Jared’s lip, and Jared – these things aren’t unrelated – drops his bag on Richard’s foot. Jian Yang comes back for his keys and they have to freeze, half-undressed and pressed together against the ladder to Richard's bunk, until they hear the door slam again as he leaves. And if Richard considered condoms at all he would have assumed Jared would be all over that, safety and preparedness and all that stuff, but Jared seems dazed that this is even on the table, like he’s never, not in his most decadent dreams, thought this far ahead. They’re saved by the fact that Tara was in town in December and some of the condoms Gilfoyle left all over the house to taunt Dinesh are still turning up in odd places, like some adult-themed Easter Egg hunt.

Jared says, a bit belatedly now that they’re both naked on a hastily-dragged-in futon on Richard's bedroom floor, “You don’t have to…”

Richard presses a kiss to the inside of his thigh. “I want to.” That’s true, that’s real, even if the confidence he forces into his voice isn’t. He has no idea what he’s doing, but Jared doesn’t seem to mind, and this can’t go any worse than he’s dreamed it.

Afterwards Richard stays quiet for a while, resting against Jared’s side, feeling pleased with himself, feeling foolishly accomplished. He doesn’t ask if they’re going to tell people about this. He doesn’t ask if Jared loves him, because he was ready to cross two states to come get him if Richard had needed him. Or maybe that’s wishful thinking, because he’s going to feel really dumb if he’s the only one maybe in love here, but Jared’s fingers are in his hair and Jared has a look on his face like he can’t believe this is _allowed_ , and the rest of it can wait.


End file.
